This is an interesting mix of “truthiness” and bigotry. Sarah is American by belief and choice, accused of being a “traitor” by people who think their ancestry and presence on the landmass of the US since birth make them guardians of the US nation-state. Aside from the incoherence (how can she be a traitor if she is not a member of the tribe?), the commenter attempts to other her by lumping her in with the virtue-signalling SJWs.

This commenter is sadly unAmerican in his resort to racist and sexist issue framing, completely misapplied to Sarah Hoyt. It’s unfortunate that the loud outpourings of these people, few in number but egging each other on in the fever swamps of sites like this blog-which-shall-go-unlinked, can so easily be used by progressive scribblers elsewhere to tar all dissenters from the Progressive program of thought control as racists, misogynists, and neo-Nazis (or worse!)

Yup, it is a shame – after all it isn’t as if people like Sarah Hoyt actively promoted a campaign which sought to give the man who runs that blog-which-shall-go-unlinked a Hugo Award for no good reason other than everybody else not liking his politics.

But the post does serve to nicely illustrate the intrinsically dishonest, pernicious, and untenable nature of the concept of the proposition nation, which anyone can join “by belief and choice”. Such a nation requires, absolutely requires, thought policing of the most stringent and ruthless variety, and is intrinsically totalitarian in a way that the most authoritarian “blood and soil” regime could never be.

It is no surprise that as a result of immigration and the necessary redefinition of what it is to be American, the country has become considerably less free despite the influx of these “belief and choice” citizens. The Know-Nothings were, more or less, correct. Indeed, the present situation is a direct consequence of the inability of 19th century immigrants to fully grasp the Rights of Englishmen, because they were never English and they will never be what might be described as Americans version 1.0. More recent arrivals are observably even less able to do so.

So, for those keeping tracking, among the groups that Vox sees as having an adverse affect on America’s gene pool are the Irish. Vox loves the classics!

[Trump] I do not blame for the crudeness, carnival barker and pro-wrestling atmosphere of this race. The Dems won election after election with such tactics and the majority of voters react positively rather than with discust. That is the fault of the general crudeness of the American people.

…

But crudeness is something from which the nation can recover, if we survive, repent, and vehemently abolish the only other rival religion to Christianity equal in strength to it, namely, political correctness.

Mr. Trump has greater charisma than Mr. Cruz, but no displayed loyalty to constitutional principles, and, seemingly, no loyalty to respect the constitutional bounds of the office.

The bluster and the undignified antics are unpresidential: he is a rightwing version of Barack Obama. Mr. Obama was, as it turns out, no more loyal to the Left than you or I would be.

I am disappointed and disheartened with him, but not to the point of supporting the vile betrayers RINOs and establishmentarians who seek to overturn the nomination process, and certainly not to the point of vowing not to support whatever candidate the party base picks.

But I hope they pick Cruz. He is a solid and principled conservative. He won a place in my heart when he filibustered for twenty four hours and more. And all the right people hate him.

Is Trump just too vulgar for Wright? Sure Trump is reactionary enough for Wright but is he a bit icky? We will have to wait and see as the Republican Party heads ever further closer to a choice between Trump and Cruz.

In a previous post I looked at how the US Republican Party nomination process was playing out in Sad Land and Rabidonia. This is a short update.

The main thing to note is that, as far as I can tell, most notable Puppies aren’t saying a great deal about it. Which is wise and maybe some are quiet Bernie Sanders supporters (OK probably not). However the vocal ones are very vocal.

The two major voices are:

Vox Day – supporting Donald Trump

Sarah Hoyt – supporting Ted Cruz

This discussion is getting a tad heated with each poster refering to the other’s position. Sarah Hoyt avoids naming Vox, I think to avoid summoning anti-Vox trolls. Vox is lambasting Sarah and is throwing some nasty digs her way:

Now, she is right about one thing. I will not be Portuguese or Italian or German no matter how long I live in Europe. Here, you can move from a neighboring village that is a 10-minute walk away and you will always be stranieri to the locals. But what Sarah fails to understand is that she is no more American than I am Portuguese. She is a US resident, perhaps even a US citizen, but she is not an American. America is not an idea. America is not a concept. America is not a proposition nation. One cannot, contra her past assertions, become a genuine American just because one happens to believe one thinks a certain way.

Vox’s minions are nastier in the comments although the man himself claims that relations are not strained between the two of them.

It does meander a bit and some of the more overt anti-Trump/VD parts are in the comments.

Oh, because Trump isn’t? Have you actually looked at Trump’s history? He talks game. He’s not any better.
Look, he is “European Right Wing” which is why VD likes him. Americans following VD MUST understand he’s not an American conservative. He’s an European right winger. They’re not the same. And here in the states, they’re both socialists. The only difference is leftists in Europe are INTERNATIONAL socialists, and right wing is NATIONAL socialist. That’s all.
You want national socialism here? Yeah. Trump is your man. He’s into the banks for millions and he’s corrupted everything he touched. But you guys believe he’s a white Knight sans peur et sans reproche. Good LORD.

As always Vox writes better, argues more effectively and for a position that is more absurd and dangerous. Sarah Hoyt gets at the core aspect that infuriates people opposed to Trump: the guy is an obvious fraud.

Meanwhile the previously Pro-Carson, John C Wright has declared his prefered choice…and it is BERNIE SANDERS!OMG! Ha, no only kidding, its Donald Trump.

To be fair to Mr Wright he doesn’t seem too happy about it. Naturally, given the right’s deep and implacable commitment to free-speech in all its forms Wright identifies the key political issue of the day:

That is not what I believe. I say the main enemy is the Press. Destroy the Press, and the federal government can be driven back into its proper constitutional limitations. With the Press at large acting as the False Prophet for the Beast, it cannot be driven back, because the people are deceived into thinking the Beast will not consume their lives.

]
Yup, that’s how the JCW’s will restore ‘freedom’ – they’ll first destroy the press. I’m guessing they’ll then protect freedom by taking away those other terrible threats like voting, differences of opinion, women having lives beyond what JCW thinks they should have, stuff like that…

Not a lot to say other than that the results currently show that amazing-crazy-who-knows-what-will-happen-next times are far from over. The key question was ‘viability’ and Sanders is still in play and Trump’s poll numbers appear to have been only a bit exaggerated.

Also, is it just me, but does Ted Cruz look a bit like a young not-wrinkly Davros?

Imagine if the US primary season and Presidential election was replaced by the Hugo voting process.

Everybody would get to nominate three candidates that they liked. The total number of nominations would be counted and the top three nominees would become the three finalists. There would be then a general vote in which people picked one of the three finalists (or No Award if they didn’t like the finalists).

Of course in this fantasy world elections would be very different but by the power of magic this change occurs overnight so that the US still has Democrats and Republicans and exactly the same pool of nominees as there are currently (OK maybe not Santorum and Gilmore because they are polling really low and Fiorina as well because 9 is an easier number to work with).

It is easy for people on the left and center to see the rightward end of US conservatism as an undifferentiated lump of homogeneous political consensus. However, that is an error akin to seeing a surface as being smooth at a distance but when seen at magnification is revealed to be full of pits and craters.

With the Sad and Rabid Puppies this often led to confusion. Note I do not accept the claim of Sad Puppy leadership that they were a wholly separate movement from the Rabids – the connection are too well documented for that to make sense – but there were strong differences in outlook and flavor between the two campaigns.